User blog:Wonder star/Gray areas, good
So not too long ago, another anon commented on a page asking if a character was "good" or "evil" and as usual, I left some rant about how you can't classify characters that way and it is more complicated than that but the issue has still been on my mind lately. I've decided instead of ranting like that every time I see such a comment, I would make a blog discussing the topic as a whole. As mentioned in the topic, this is about that "gray area" of neither good nor bad, this has nothing to do with an actualy area that is the color gray. To begin, let's just say, none of the characters in this series are particularilly evil or good, that seems like a big claim right? well here is an example: The swamp witch is not necessarilly doing good things right? well from her standpoint, she is just trying to spread her own views to the nation, she really just wants to share her vision of a perfect land, it just happens to conflict with what a lot of other people want. I personally believe she should be stopped but that is only because of a conflict in interests. I just don't want to see death brought to the characters. Is it really evil if you believe what you are doing is right? I do believe she might know some of what she is doing is wrong but she seems to be justifying it by her end goal. Another example is Annelotte, notice how she appears to be the hero of rebellion right? but from Claudette's view(under a curse or not), she is causing chaos and attempting to undo all the good she has done for the nation. The whole problem in the first seasons was that the nobles were not taking good care or the people right? so what did Claudette do when in power? She de-throned those nobles and the people of the country thrived. She also saw fit to get rid of the queen's blade tournament right? Probably to ensure her reign would last so no other strange warrior could come in and re-establish the nobles power, seems smart right? Well in de-throning the nobles, they decided to fight back which is where Annelotte comes in, her family resisted Claudette and fell to destruction because of it. Annelotte happened to notice that Claudette was ignoring the swamp growing and that people were suffering and she also wanted to re-establish the queen's blade so Claudette could not become corrupted by power and then maintain office forever. You see how from Claudette's veiw, Annelotte is just opposing her as an upset noble yet from Annellotte's veiw, she is bringing justice to the people and avenging her family. Echidna and Melona are just more examples, maybe neither of them is nice but in the end, both of them mainly care about themselves. As a mercenary, it is Echidna's job to do what they pay her for whether that is killing someone or protecting someone, she does still have a choice as shown by her not returning Leina to the Vances but that was because she enjoyed playing with Leina, she probably couldn't have cared less about Leina's goals. When they met, Leina did not even have a chance to say why she ran away, Echidna just decided playing with her was fun so she left her alone as an excuse to come back and play with her more later. Melona happens to be fairly similar, she works for the swamp witch because of a spell, she doesn't really care if she has to do bad things just so long as she remains out of trouble and doesn't have to work too hard. Melona is capable of kindness, although she's manipulative, she's mainly just in it for what suits her best. Does that make her evil? Well, not necesarily, by that definition, a lot of people are evil, it's not evil, just selfish. What really defines good and evil anyways? Good is typically what is best for the side that holds the viewpoint and evil is what they say is bad, no one in this series is just being evil for the sake of evil, it's usually just that they are being selfish or ignoring something for their' own sake. Yes, actions can be classified as "good" and "bad" but you really cannot classify an entire character based on a few actions. One of my favorite things about this anime is that the characters are complex in a way, none of them really strive to be a specific side but instead, they are just themselves and as the veiwer we go along with how the characters feel based on how the story is told, if we flipped the angles, we might feel differently about a lot of things, obviously it wouldn't change our morals and there would be things we still saw as not right but we might have different views(and probably would). You have to look at the issue from both sides before you can have an oppinion. If you really wanna clean cut answer of good or evil, decide for yourself and if you can't, maybe just accept that things are not as neat as you might think and move on. Lemme just apply this to the real world for a minute, in a war, which side is bad? the one that isn't yours right? but from their' veiw point, you are the bad side, both sides have a reason right? neither side just went into it saying "I'm just gonna do this to be a bad guy", the only defining feature is the end when the winner tells the story, thank you for reading this all Category:Blog posts